The thought that kept nibbling at the edge of my awareness was finally faced. I was going to have to surrender and get a collar back on—there was no way of avoiding that. My memories of what that was like were not very nice, in fact my brain sort of twitched a bit inside the bone case at the thought. There had been entirely too much traffic through my gray matter of late and I was not looking forward to any more. Yet it was unavoidable. The collar and torture box had to be part of any plan, and they had to be neutralized. Not a very easy thing to accomplish. I mumbled over all the possibilities, and when the attack plan was blocked out I sent for Taze and told her what I was going to do.
"You can't," she said, and I swear those large lovely eyes were filled with tears, "turn yourself over to those fiends. To save a woman. If only the men on this planet were like you. Impossible to believe…"
I resisted the impulse to enjoy a little warm female solace and turned to snapping open some of the weapon containers. At the sight of the grenades Miss Taze retreated and Sergeant Taze looked on with interest.
"This will be a two part operation," I told her. "I'll take care of the first part myself, which will be the penetration of the building and freeing Angelina. I hope to grab a gray man as well, but if that slows me down we'll save that part of the job for another time. The second part of the operation will be getting out of the Octagon, and for that I am going to need your help. I'll need plans of the building, I want to talk to someone who knows his way around it well, someone on the custodial staff if possible, so I can find an area of vulnerability. Can you do this now?"
"At once," she called back over her shoulder as she left. A reliable girl our Taze. I dug into the equipment containers.
Dawn was only two hours away before we were ready to move. I had completed my part of the operation, but setting up the escape afterwards wasn't that simple. The Octagon was very much like a fortress in the eyes of the small forces we could muster quickly. And we were hampered by our lack of any aircraft or heavy equipment. There seemed no way out by air or on the ground. It was one of the maintenance staff, finally located and dragged in shivering, who found the exit and pointed it out with a trembling finger on the blueprints.
"Cable tunnel, sir and mam, goes under the street and under the walls and comes up in sub-basement 17. Big-tunnel for wires and telephone and that kind of thing."
"It's sure to be bugged," I said. "But if we plan this right it won't matter. Take notes, ladies, because I don't want to repeat myself. This is how the operation is going to work."
By the time everything had been taken care of it was less than twenty minutes to dawn and I was in a cold sweat. The first units were moving into position when I put the viewphone call in to Kraj. We were connected at once and I talked before he could say anything.
"I want to see Angelina instantly, and talk to her. I have to be absolutely sure she has not been banned."
He didn't argue, he had been expecting this. She came into focus and I saw that hated collar with its cable leading up out of the picture.
"Are you all right?"
"As fine as I could possibly be while in the same room with this creature," she said calmly.
"They've done nothing to you?"
"Nothing as yet, other than to clap this collar around my neck and hook the thing up to the ceiling so I wouldn't run away. But you can just imagine the threats this repulsive man has made. I don't think I could live for a moment with a mind like his…"
She stiffened then and her eyes rolled up out of sight although her lids didn't close. Kraj had given her a shot of the nerve torture. I knew at that moment that he would never live if I could get my hands on him. His face reappeared on the screen and it took an effort I did not think myself capable of to stare at him calmly and say nothing.
"You'll come to me now, diGriz, and surrender. You only have a few minutes left. You know what will happen to your wife if you don't. If you surrender she will be released at once."
"What proof do I have that you will keep your word?"
"None whatsoever. But you don't have a choice, do you?"
"I'll be there," I said as calmly as I could manage and turned the phone off—but not before I heard Angelina's shouted no in the background.
"Are those clothes dry yet?" I asked, tearing off my shirt and kicking out of my boots at the same time.
"Just about," Taze said. She and another girl were holding hot air blowers to a Cliaand uniform that I thought was just right for this occasion. It had been soaked in a chemical bath and was now being force dried.
"Almost is good enough, we can't wait any longer."
There were some damp patches, but nothing that mattered. We left, and the powerboat was waiting at the hotel dock below, motor rumbling. So far so good. And the car was there on shore with Dr. Mutfak in the back, black bag on his knees, muttering to himself.
"I don't like it," he said. "It is really a violation of my medical code of ethics."
"War is a violation of any code of ethics or morality, a monstrosity against which any weapons must be used. Do what you have been asked."
"I'll do it, that goes without saying, but a man is allowed to comment upon the ethics involved."
"Comment. But fill the needle at the same time."
We parked in a side street, in the darkness, with the Octagon just around the corner.
"Catalyst," I said, "and don't spill any. Under my arms where the dampness won't be noticed."
I raised both arms and felt the warmth of the liquid from the insulated container, then quickly lowered my arms to trap the wet fabric between my upper arms and my sides. Then I climbed out of the car and put my hand back in through the window, The needle bit into my flesh and that was that. As I started around the corner I heard the car pull away.
The Octagon loomed up like a mountain before me, the sky beginning to lighten behind it. We had cut this very close. There was an entrance ahead, the one I had been directed to, and two of the gray men were waiting. Both wore gausspistols which were still in the holsters. They were very sure of themselves. I walked up to them silently and one of them clamped a come-along cuff on my wrist and led me in through the doors and past the silent guards. I stumbled going up the stairs and after that looked down carefully to see where I put my feet. The injection was beginning to take effect. There was nothing I wanted to say and my captors, they in their usual fashion, had nothing to say to me. They prodded me in the direction they wanted me to go and pushed me through the doorway of the room they wanted me to enter. Once inside they covered me with their guns while the wrist-cuff was unlocked.
"Clothes off," one of them ordered.
It was an effort not to smile. There was the fluoroscope off to one side and the other test equipment. These characters were running true to type, following the same routine they had used when I had first been captured. Didn't they realize that routine was a trap and a losing game? No they did not. I fumbled off my clothes and let them work their will upon me.
They found nothing of course, since there was nothing there to find. Or rather there was one thing that I was sure they would not find. And they didn't. They slowly plodded through their routine examinations and I began to wish they would finish and be done. My head was getting a little foggy from the drug and I felt as though I were wrapped in cotton wool. The injection must be reaching the peak of its effectiveness and would be tapering off soon. What I had to do must be done when the drug was at the height of its power—or close to it—or all the preparations would be useless.